obedience

King Saul had a knack for justifying his disobedience. Before attacking the Amalekites, Samuel clearly instructed Saul to destroy the people and their livestock (1 Sam. 15:3). No exceptions. After the battle, Samuel pays Saul a visit amid the bleating and lowing of the captured livestock. Saul justified his actions by saying that they only kept some of the best of the livestock, so that they could offer them as sacrifices to the Lord. Samuel doesn’t buy it.

The pressures of leadership and our desire to keep people happy may tempt us to try to justify our partial obedience. Yet, as we see from the story, partial obedience is disobedience.

In the first two chapters of 1 Samuel, we see something of the hearts of several key spiritual leaders in Israel.  Eli’s sons, in particular, were engaging in detestable practices, as I described in my previous blog (“Staying Pure”). Is it any wonder that God refrained from entrusting His words to those who were untrustworthy in their actions (1 Sam. 3:1)? Perhaps, there is a principle here for leaders today. When sin comes between God and us, we are much less likely to hear His vision for our lives and ministries. The solution: A lifestyle of surrender, repentance and obedience. It’s a hard trail to climb, but absolutely essential if we want to hear God’s vision and have the capacity to live and lead according to His plans.

Leaders must sometimes do the unexpected to get big or at least different results. In fact, the Lord will occasionally guide us to do something that seems crazy.

A number of Jesus’ disciples, some of them seasoned fishermen, had been fishing all night without success. Jesus comes along and tells these veterans of the sea to cast their nets on the right-hand side of the boat. Now, if I was one of those sleep-deprived, empty-netted disciples, I would have thought, “What difference would that make?” However, the disciples obeyed this stranger (they didn’t know it was their beloved Lord yet). The result – a net bursting with fish.

Sometimes, Jesus will ask us to do something unusual. Will we keep doing the same-old, same-old, producing the same results, or will we take a chance and obey?